Ball bats of known construction have a shape such that the center of gravity of the bat falls approximately one third of the length of the bat from the head end of the bat. The conventional construction of the bat leads to the drawback that the hitter has a diminished feel and control of the bat, with a resulting diminished precision in hitting the ball. In order to overcome this problem hitters have applied pine tar to the handle to achieve a better grip friction and a better kinaesthetic awareness which is a prerequisite for attaining good rhythm, timing, quickness, power, control and efficiency.
Traditional bats have always exhibited destructive effects on hitters, since they are too long and too heavy, with the majority of weight in the bat head. The center of gravity is more toward the head end of the bat which makes the bat top heavy and causes poor bat head control. The bat head is hard to start, virtually impossible to control through the preparatory swing and follow through phase, and it is even harder to stop the forward momentum of the bat head, if at the last fraction of a second the batter decides that the does not want to offer at the thrown ball.
A head-heavy bat creates leverage problems, disrupting the stability of the body when the bat head-heavy weight creates a counter force that acts upon the body to jerk the batter in many different directions and away from a controlled, efficient movement pattern. The head-heavy bat misaligns the skeletal system with the poorly positioned bat mass, causes a large portion of muscle fibers to contract just to neutralize the negative forces applied at the bat head, which reduces the availability of the muscles for a fast limb movement such as hitting an object with a striking implement. It is generally accepted that muscle fibers operate on an all-or-nothing principles, they either contract completely or do not contract at all. This exterior weight placement causes a considerable portion of the estimated 250 million muscle fibers of the body to be placed in a state of contractability just to neutralize the counter forces of the head-heavy bat.
The muscular-skeletal disruption caused by the more distally placed center of gravity of the conventional bat requires a great degree of internal muscular application to keep the skeletal system stable during the movement phase. The all-or-nothing law of contractability of muscle fibers further hampers the potential for an explosive movement pattern by preventing the nerves and muscles from working together effectively. The muscles are already contracted as a direct result of the head-heavy bat and therefore cannot be acted upon or triggered by the nerves, which determines the firing quickness and the number of muscle fibers activated for the specific force to be applied. The neruomuscular application of force transferred from the body to the bat during the swing phase is directly responsible for speed, precision and power.
The conventional bat construction creates negative leverage, disrupts the delicate inner balance mechanisms of the body, reduces the efficiency of the muscles and neutralizes the responsiveness, or triggering effect of the nerves to fire the muscles.
Due to the lightness of the conventional bat handle, with resulting distant center of gravity of the bat disposed as much as approximately three-fourths of the bat length (about 27 inches) of a regulation bat from the handle end, i.e., the bat knob, the forces acting on the body and the limbs of the hitter make it much more difficult to control the movement of the bat head, and cause additional stress to hitters' joints and connective tissue, which in worst cases can disrupt a joint, and cause injuries to the arms and body.
It is accordingly a primary object of the invention to provide a ball bat with features sufficient to overcome the drawbacks of the known ball bats and to provide a precision striking implement capable of producing better hitting proficiency with reduced strains to the body of the hitter.